I have to be honest Curl and say that I find it somewhat annoying that you made a thread championing the differences in people and the different options people may want or believe in - only to be so firm in one belief and not consider any other. At least what I'm arguing is that the example of Souls games is bad, not that every game should have them or that every game shouldn't have them. I don't really see much of a point in discussing something if the opposing stance is always going to stick to such an opinion, especially one as one-dimensional as this. It's the same thing that happened in the resolution thread - I brought up multiple arguments and what I essentially got as a counter-argument was you believe what you believe. Ok ... 

As an example, saying that there's "objectively no downside" is just odd, because that does not take into account that the attachment one has to video games - including the developers themselves, is very subjective. Would there be no objective downside if Shadow of the Colossus became a first person shooter? Sony would make more money and Japan Studio would undoubtedly have their first big hit on their hands. Well in that case, there might not be an "objective downside", but there would definitely be a subjective one for anyone who liked it. And unfortunately what people don't realize is that various aspects of a game can matter as much as any other defining factor, including difficulty. 

I'm not going to say that difficulty modes shouldn't be in the Souls games. It would be my preference but I'm not going to say it. What I will say is that I don't think a difficulty select is right for every game - and that's based on a much more nuanced opinion than just everything is for everyone, or every niche game should only be for one niche crowd. 

The Shadow of the Colossus example is not analogous because in that case it's not optional.

Something being "optional" is not an excuse for it to be non-critiqueable. There are so many games this generation that have the ability to turn something off and yet the game is so centered around the mechanic being turned off that they just don't work even when people try to tailor the experience to their preference. You see this in open world games a lot where the developers handhold the player, the player doesn't want to have their hand held, but when they turn off the options the game is nearly unplayable because there's no way to know where you're going or what you're supposed to do. 

That's not the case with the optional assists I am talking about though. NSMB does not become unplayable if you choose to forego the Super Guide, nor does DKCR or Tropical Freeze.

Some people just don't understand that not everything is made for them, or has to be made for them.  That being said, I wish there was an option to shut these things off completely.  Whenever Rosalina would show up in Mario Galaxy 2 I would feel like I was being mocked.

If it took next to no time to develop, could be ignored completely if desired, and in no way changed the core experience, then there would be no objective downside to making an FPS mode to Shadow of the Colossus.  But, obviously that isn't possible here.  There are obvious downsides in this scenario.

To use NSMB as an example, what downside does the super block feature have (Luigi comes and does the levels for you but skipping any secrets)?

Right - which is why I didn't mention those games. 

And why I didn't mention the sort of thing you're talking about either, because what you're talking about isn't optional assists, but optional handicaps, the total opposite.